[3.] See the list of words given at the end of this article, p. 400.
[ IX. ]
MY REPLY TO MR. DARWIN.
During the whole of the year that has just passed away, all my spare time has been required for the completion of my edition of the Rig-Veda and its Sanskrit commentary. I had to shut my eyes to everything else. Many a book which I felt tempted to read was put aside, and hardly a single Review could draw me away from my purpose. Thus it has come to pass that I did not know, till a few days ago, that some Lectures which I had delivered at the Royal Institution on “Mr. Darwin’s Philosophy of Language,” and which had been fully reported in “Fraser’s Magazine” for May, June, and July, 1873, had elicited a reply emanating from one who writes if not in, at least with Mr. Darwin’s name, and who himself would be, no doubt most proud to acknowledge the influence of “family bias.” I could not have guessed from the title of the paper, “Professor Whitney on the Origin of Language: by George H. Darwin,” that it was meant as an answer to the arguments which I had ventured to advance in my Lectures at the Royal Institution against Mr. Darwin’s views on language. It was only when telling a friend that I soon hoped to find time to complete those Lectures, that I was asked whether I had seen Darwin’s reply. I read it at once in the November number of the “Contemporary Review;” and, as it will take some time before I can hope to finish my book on “Language as the true barrier between Man and Beast,” I determined, in the meantime, to publish a brief rejoinder to the defense of Mr. Darwin’s philosophy, so ably and chivalrously conducted by his son.
With regard to the proximate cause of Mr. Darwin’s defense of his father’s views on language—viz. an article in the “Quarterly Review,” I may say at once that I knew nothing about it till I saw Mr. G. Darwin’s article; and if there should be any suspicion in Mr. Darwin’s mind that the writer in the “Quarterly Review” is in any sense of the word my alter ego I can completely remove that impression.
It seems that the writer in the “Quarterly” expressed himself in the following terms with regard to Mr. Darwin’s competency on linguistic problems:—
“Few recent intellectual phenomena are more astounding than the ignorance of these elementary yet fundamental distinctions and principles (i.e., as to the essence of language) exhibited by conspicuous advocates of the monistic hypothesis. Mr. Darwin, for example, does not exhibit the faintest indication of having grasped them.”
Mr. Darwin, I mean the father, if he has read my lectures, or anything else I have written, might easily have known that that is not the tone in which I write, least of all when speaking of men who have rendered such excellent service to the advancement of science as the author of the book “On the Origin of Species.” To me, the few pages devoted to language by Mr. Darwin were full of interest, as showing the conclusions to which that school of philosophy which he so worthily represents is driven with regard to the nature and origin of language. If put into more becoming language, however, I do not think there would be anything offensive in stating that Mr. Darwin, Sr., knows the results of the Science of Language at second hand only, and that his opinions on the subject, however interesting as coming from him, cannot be accepted or quoted as authoritative. It has often done infinite mischief when men who have acquired a right to speak with authority on one subject, express opinions on other subjects with which they are but slightly acquainted. These opinions, though never intended for that purpose, are sure to be invested by others, particularly by interested persons, with an authority to which in themselves they have no right whatever. It is true it would be difficult to carry on any scientific work, without to some extent recognizing the authority of those who have established their claim to a certain amount of infallibility within their own special spheres of study. But when either the Pope expresses an opinion on astronomy, or the Duke of Wellington on a work of art, they certainly ought not to be offended if asked for their reasons, like any other mortals. No linguistic student, if he had ventured to express an opinion on the fertilization of orchids, differing from that of Mr. Darwin, would feel aggrieved by being told that his opinion, though showing intelligence, did not show that real grasp of the whole bearing of the problem which can be acquired by a life-long devotion only. If the linguistic student, who may be fond of orchids, cared only for a temporary triumph in the eyes of the world, he might easily find, among the numerous antagonists of Mr. Darwin, one who agreed with himself, and appeal to him as showing that he, though a mere layman in the Science of Botany, was supported in his opinions by other distinguished botanists. But no real advance in the discovery of truth can ever be achieved by such mere cleverness. How can the soundness and truth of Mr. Darwin’s philosophy of language be established by an appeal like that with which Mr. Darwin, Jr., opens his defense of his father?
“Professor Whitney,” he says, “is the first philologist of note who has professedly taken on himself to combat the views of Professor Max Müller; and as the opinions of the latter most properly command a vast deal of respect in England, we think it will be good service to direct the attention of English readers to this powerful attack, and, as we think, successful refutation of the somewhat dogmatic views of our Oxford linguist.”
First of all, nothing would convey a more erroneous impression than to say that Professor Whitney was the first philologist of note who has combated my views. There is as much combat in the linguistic as in the physical camp, though Mr. Darwin may not be aware of it. Beginning with Professor Pott, I could give a long list of most illustrious scholars in Germany, France, Italy, and surely in England also, who have subjected my views on language to a far more searching criticism than Professor Whitney in America. But even if Professor Whitney were the only philologist who differed from me, or agreed with Mr. Darwin, how would that affect the soundness of Mr. Darwin’s theories on language? Suppose I were to quote in return the opinion of M. Renouvier, the distinguished author of “Les Principes de la Nature,” who, in his journal, “La Critique Philosophique,” expresses his conviction that my criticism of Mr. Darwin’s philosophy contains not a simple polémique, but has the character of a rédressement; would that dishearten Mr. Darwin? I must confess that I had never before read Professor Whitney’s “Lectures on Language,” which were published in America in 1867; and I ought to thank Mr. Darwin for having obliged me to do so now, for I have seldom perused a book with greater interest and pleasure,—I might almost say, amusement. It was like walking through old familiar places, like listening to music which one knows one has heard before somewhere, and, for that very reason, enjoys all the more. Not unfrequently I was met by the ipsissima verba of my own lectures on the Science of Language, though immediately after they seemed to be changed into an inverted fugue. Often I saw how carefully the same books and pamphlets which I had waded through had been studied: and on almost every page there were the same doubts and difficulties, the same hopes and fears, the same hesitations and misgivings through which I myself well remembered having passed when preparing my two series of “Lectures on Language.” Of course, we must not expect in Professor Whitney’s Lectures, anything like a systematic or exhaustive treatment. They touch on points which were most likely to interest large audiences at Washington, and other towns in America. They were meant to be popular, and nothing would be more unfair than to blame an author for not giving what he did not mean to give. The only just complaint we have heard made about these Lectures is that they give sometimes too much of what is irreverently called “padding.” Professor Whitney had read my own Lectures before writing his; and though he is quite right in saying the principal facts on which his reasonings are founded have been for some time past the commonplaces of Comparative Philology, and required no acknowledgment, he makes an honorable exception in my favor, and acknowledges most readily having borrowed here and there an illustration from my Lectures. As to my own views on the Science of Language, I am glad to find that on all really important points, he far more frequently indorses them—nay, corroborates them by new proofs and illustrations—than attempts to refute them; and even in the latter case he generally does so by simply pronouncing his decided preference for one out of two opinions, while I had been satisfied with stating what could be said on either side. He might here and there have tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but I believe there is far more license allowed in America, in the expression of dissent, than in England; and it is both interesting and instructive in the study of Dialectic Growth, to see how words which would be considered offensive in England, have ceased to be so on the other side of the Atlantic, and are admitted into the most respectable of American Reviews.